Thursday, May 20, 2010

Take my hand: Anish

Evie and I met in college. For a long time I used to think she did come from Venus. For better or worse, Mars and Venus got together.. you could say they are still light years apart. We are working on it.

Ev loves people. She has friends that will swear by her. I've met some of them. Most of Ev's friends are really nice. Of late, I've met Giri. Ev has a habit of effusive reminiscencing. I am annoyed, bored and amused in equal parts by this habit. Yet mostly I am not sure what is true and what is story telling. She is complicated. You have to read between her lines..

I like Giri. I actually like it that he cares for Ev. Thats for anyone to see. I guess I am curious too. I never had friends close to me like that. And I am intrigued by Seema. She's very beautiful. I haven't known too many women well. Seema attracts and repels me at the same time. Attracts because she's really smart. Repels because she's a bit on the morose side. She's different from most of Ev's other friends. I'd like to know her better. The other day at the movie theater, we couldn't agree on a single movie. Seema and I chose the same one. I suggested each of us see what we liked. My suggestion was not serious. Seema agreed to the proposal out of the blue. You can trust Ev to give up on reason at a time like this. If she did not like the idea, why she couldn't say "I dont think so", I dont know. She flashed her eyes and almost stormed away dragging Giri by his hand. Seema was smiling at me. I am not sure what was on her mind. We ended up watching this gory movie together. And then I could see Ev was in one of her moods. At times like this I am at a total loss. I have no clue how to turn things around. I just wait for her to recover.

Ev is frantically planning a vacation with the four of us. I feel ill at ease committing hours for vacations. But once Ev gets something into her head, it gets done or there is no peace. Actually, let me recant that. I do enjoy the trips if the company is right. Unfortunately, Ev is usually pretty indiscriminate.

We have come to the Redwood Forests National Park. The trees are so tall. I can easily believe that a dinosaur walked this place. The floors are covered with gray green moss, as is some of the trees. It looks like a scene out of the Jurassic Park. The tree barks are wet and peeling. The tree roots look deep and tortuously knotted. It is wet, cold and abysmally cloudy. But this seems to go with the place. We hiked almost a mile without talking.. any one of us. That is so unusual. The atmosphere here gets to you. You cannot laugh out loud in a temperate rain forest. It will feel weird. "click, click...No photographs please!" Whenever we go out on hikes, this screams in my head. But Ev is beyond stubborn. She is however reticent today (thank goodness!) Giri and her are walking ahead of us. So, Seema is walking next to me. Silence can be opressing and silence can be companionable. Right now, I want Ev to come walk with me. I am used to being quiet with her. Its diffcult to be quiet with a stranger unless you are willing to ignore her. I couldn't exactly ignore Seema somehow.

I dreamt of large trees closing in on me all night.. it was terrible. Ev says she woke up twice during the night and caught me mumbling pretty loudly. She shook me but I did not wake up. Just stopped the talking. She is looking freaked out. Poor girl. I tell her this is nothing. But I am pretty spooked myself. The forests are having a strange effect of me. It is so quiet here. So dark. So peaceful. You lose sense of time. Even the concierge at our hotel wore a disturbingly vacant expression. Seema had similar dreams she reports. Dark black shapes stifling her... not allowing her to breathe! Wow!